Page 21 of 72 Hours

I was facing an immediate internal inquiry.

The initial interrogation went on for several days, and my arse got well and truly kicked while they unravelled exactly what had happened. What protocols I’d breached. What standards I’d compromised. What—and who—had gone wrong. During that time, I was only allowed calls to the hospital, to see how things were going. Simon kept me posted on how well the operation went, how Niall would be okay soon. All that encouraging stuff that Simon was so good at—and that passed me by completely.

They let me in to see Niall eventually. He was in a private room by then, still weak from the blood loss and shock, still under the hospital care. And when I got there, ready to sit with him, to care for him, to do all those goddamned things that lovers do for each other—someone was already there.

“Hello, Tanner.”

“Joe.” I nodded to him. I glanced at the bed, met Niall’s pale, wide gaze. My heart ached from a strange mix of fear, relief and... well, it just ached, you know?

“Tanner.” Niall grinned, but it was a poor imitation of past ones. “I’m glad you’re here at last.”

“He’s doing good.” Joe gave one of his own quick, efficient smiles. “I’ve checked in here each night and the steady progress is unmistakable.”

Every night?

I sat on the spare chair by the window and stared at Joe’s obviously familiar seat on the other chair. The one at the bedside. He continued talking to Niall in a low, restful voice. Things about the progress of Mission Dove, about the guys in the Team, about the successful prosecution of the club owner. Of his martial arts training; of the latest weapons intelligence.

I sat silently, just watching.

Well, there we have it. I mentioned Joe Lam before, didn’t I? As far as work went, he’d always been the one to spend the most time with Niall, which was kind of obvious. They both dealt with the militaristic side of things. Not really my forte. They’d both been in the armed services at some stage; they actually knew a couple of mutual acquaintances, even before they’d joined the Team. It was obvious they’d be thrown together.

“I’ll call in again later,” I said. Joe nodded easily. Niall’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything. He looked kind of tired, really.

Hell, we all admired Joe; he was a great guy to have on your team, and had always impressed me. He was kind of fierce, though, and he liked to play on that, I’m sure. He wasn’t a guy you warmed to until you knew him better.

I guess, over the months we’d been in the Team, Niall had managed to get to know him a hell of a sight better than me.

THE INQUIRY REPORTED its conclusion a few weeks later. I was cleared of direct blame for Niall’s injury. Yeah, I’d been under-prepared, and I should have allowed Simon to brief me more thoroughly, and I should have remembered that every situation has to be treated with the utmost caution, but I wasn’t held responsible for the unprovoked attack. I stared at my copy of the report as Judith ran through it with me, most of the words blurring to incomprehensibility in the face of my anger and misery. I was scheduled for some juvenile training and some outreach work with local youth groups, and then Judith assured me the matter was concluded.

“I know where I went wrong.”

She’d frowned at me. “You’re the one beating yourself up worst of all, Tanner.”

“You mean I wasn’t responsible for Niall getting a blade in his gut?”

She winced but recovered well. “No, not officially.”

Sure didn’t feel that way.

And that was also when things started to collapse personally for us. Seemed like every time I found time to be with Niall, so did Joe. He arranged for Niall to be taken home, he arranged the proper post-operative care. I discovered that everyone thought this was an excellent idea. Judith praised him, Simon admired his reliability, Brad was impressed with his knowledge of medical matters.

Seemed churlish to complain.

They must all have looked at me and thought, “What the fuck?” I’m sure they did. I know how they’d all seen me up until then: an easy-going guy with plenty of improvisation skills, but nothing more robust than that. And now, wait a second—hadn’t it been my fuck-up that put Niall in the hospital in the first place? Okay, so no one ever said it. But no one denied it, either. And when Niall turned those deep, dark, weary eyes on to Lam and “thanked” him for his help....

It all stuck in my throat like I’d swallowed a fucking grenade.

I knew things were on the downward slope without knowing what the hell to do about it. I felt like I’d lost Niall’s attention and his care. His respect. He never said anything that specific, of course. He never argued with me about it. And hey, I never caught him and Joe doing anything other than hugging, and let’s face it, we were all fond of that, as support and comfort and a gesture of solidarity. But it seemed to me that he withdrew his respect from me and bestowed it elsewhere. That can be a betrayal, even without fucking.

Can’t it?

I WAS STILL LIVING full-time with Niall. When the heavy nursing stuff faded into general daily care, it was entrusted to me. Obviously they thought I could cope with the occasional change of dressing and some physiotherapy exercises. Hurrah for me. But whatever the reason, it was a relief to push aside the spotlight that had been glaring on us. Niall told me how pleased he was that the inquiry had concluded in my favour; he told me he wanted to put it all behind him. He rarely spoke of it again.

In fact, he was as damned quiet as always. And maybe more so.

Mission Dove was at full strength, but obviously he couldn’t be as involved as he wanted. I was still deployed, and I didn’t find any evidence that they held back on my tasks because I’d fucked up once. In fact, it was often a relief to immerse myself in the day job, because life at home was... well, tense doesn’t begin to describe it.

We still ate and drank and slept together. In fact, we still fucked, though pretty gingerly at first. We were as drawn to each other as always, but wary. He’d lost a lot of blood in the incident, and there was now an impressive scar along his torso, coloured an angry red and shining with fresh new skin as it started to heal. One night, lying naked and lightly sweating in bed, I followed the impulse to kiss along it. He winced, and it felt like he flinched away from me. In my heart, I knew it wasn’t from any kind of pain.